—12F at dawn but warming up to +30F by mid-day. Spring is only 5 weeks away! Spent time today continuing to attempt to ID the “Baby Blue Group” apple, the one we think could be Walbridge.

During our Working Group meeting on February 6 there was some thought that the Baby Blue Group (BBG) might be another popular apple out west called McAfee. So today I dove into McAfee, one apple I know even less about than Walbridge. I compared the BBG phenotype with Dan Bussey’s description of McAfee in The Illustrated History of Apples in the United States and Canada.

I think it is unlikely that BBG is McAfee. McAfee is medium to large in size. All of the BBG apples I examined were a solid medium. The shape of the two apples is also different. Although the general description of McAfee’s shape is similar to BBG, the depiction of the apple in the historic USDA watercolors is quite different than that of BBG. McAfee’s calyx tube is distinctly long and funnel-shaped. Not so, BBG. McAfee’s core is described as “decidedly abaxile.” (Presumably “decidedly” means something like “pronounced” or “obviously”.) BBG’s is “decidedly” axile. McAfee’s carpels are said to be tufted. (That’s when the seed cells are partly covered with small fluffy, cottony bits.) BBG’s are not.

So much minutiae. When it comes to attempting to pry a name out of an apple that no one’s been growing for a hundred years and there’s no one left who can identify it from sight and only a few who’ve even heard of it, what do you do?

When focusing on apples you don’t grow or know much about, you’re forced to trust the writers of the past. You read the old books, and you hope that whoever wrote the description was a keen observer and an articulate writer whose understanding and use of the terminology matches with yours. Did they mean what you think they meant? You hold the apple, you cut the apple, you stare at the apple, you translate the old words, and you see where it leads you…